From Wonso Pond (10 page)

“Have you always eaten in the kitchen?”

With this, he headed back inside, where he must have said something, for the shrill voice of Okchom's mother then drifted outside.

“I have to put up with that stubborn girl night and day. She won't do anything unless you insist on it. I'm telling you, she's tougher than cowhide.”

Sonbi's cheeks were burning. She felt the juices she'd just sucked off the chicken bones working themselves back up her throat.

After finishing the dishes, Sonbi was about to cross over to her room, when she ran into Okchom's mother standing in the breezeway.

“Now that Okchom is back at home, you'll have to sleep with Granny, or else in here with me.”

Okchom popped out of her room.

“Come and clean out this room. What is all this stuff in here anyway? You've got more bundles of junk than a Chinaman. Hah, ha . . .”

Okchom turned to look at the man in the suit as she laughed. Sonbi was so embarrassed that she blushed to the very tips of her ears. She went into the room and gathered all her bundles together. As she took in what Okchom had just said to her, she tried to decide just where she would move her things.

Moving into the inner room meant having to sleep with Okchom's mother—she didn't want to do that—but moving in with Granny meant sharing a tiny little space. She couldn't decide what to do, and
sat there lost in thought. Then she remembered the house in the lower village, where she and her mother had once lived. Though it was only a straw-roofed hut, it was still their very own home! She felt the urge to go see it now.

‘I wonder who's living there?' she thought.

Sonbi looked down again at her bundles again. Slowly she rose to her feet, and with both hands lifted up her things.

18

“Man, is it hot! Come on and sing something, will ya?”

So short and squat that they all called him Little Buddha, the young man had turned to a tall man behind him. He dug his hoe into the ground, pulled out a foxtail, and tossed it to the side.

As the young men exchanged small talk, they called each other by their nicknames.

“A song, a song!”

“Come on, Sourstem, just sing something! I can't stand it any longer.”

Little Buddha slapped his tall friend Sourstem on the back. Next to him, Ch'otchae was working up a good sweat pulling out weeds.

“Come on, let's hear a song!” he echoed, turning around.

Little Buddha shot a glance in his direction.

“What does an oaf like you want to hear singing for?”

Without a few drinks inside him, Ch'otchae hardly ever spoke a word to anyone. But once he was drunk he would jabber on and on, all night long, in words no one could really make out.

Ch'otchae looked over at Little Buddha and grinned at him. He had the habit of smiling like this instead of actually answering.

From the mountain in front of them then came the sound, Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Sourstem looked over at the hillside.

“Hey, the cuckoos are the only ones singing!”

With this, he began his song, the blood vessels along the side of his neck slightly bulging.

All the dirt and all the stones
One by one I pick them out
To eat myself and to give to my love
I plant rice for the fall

He drew out the last note long and slow. Then the farmer nicknamed Earthworm softly closed his eyes.

That thorn in my side
The rich landowner
To fill his metal storehouse
Did I plant for the fall

The rising, twisting melody at times dropped in tone and then faded away.

“Now that's more like it!” shouted Little Buddha, striking his hoe into the ground. But then an overwhelming feeling of sadness pressed on their hearts.

“Hey, what are you waiting for? It's your turn again!” Yu Sobang looked at Sourstem with a smile.

“You old raccoon dog,” said Sourstem. “How about you buy me a drink if I sing?”

“You got it.”

Ch'otchae was more thirsty than ever at this mention of alcohol. His mouth started to water as though he could see a bowl of milky-white brew right there before his eyes.

“No, I quit. My voice is worth more than a cup of booze.”

“Oh, come on. Let's just do it.”

Several of the men cried out at the same time. Yu Sobang then took off his straw hat and began fanning himself with it.

“It's hot as hell out here. Just sing something, will you? If you don't want brew, I'll buy you some hard stuff.”

“Don't go getting a big head, Sourstem, just 'cause you can sing.” Little Buddha knocked Sourstem's hat off his head with a tap of his hand.

“Hey, stop it . . . Whose place are you going to weed tomorrow, anyway?”

“I'm going over to help in Samch'i Village, why?”

“Those fields are packed with rocks. They must be hell to weed.”

“Yeah, and the tenant pays five sacks of rice for them, too.”

“Well, he must not pay the land taxes, right? With the rent so high . . .”

“He pays everything, the taxes, too.”

“Out of his own pocket? You've got to be kidding! He's going to starve working those fields.”

Sourstem cast a sidelong glance at Yu Sobang. Since the man worked for Tokho, the rest of them always kept their distance from him. Little Buddha spit on the ground.

“I don't know what the hell he thinks he's up to lately,” he replied under his breath.

He wrapped his hand around a millet plant, so as not to damage it with his hoe, and he chopped into the ground, loosening the soil around it. The wind just then picked up, and the blades of the millet plants swayed softly in the breeze.

A calf lowed somewhere off in the distant. Sourstem lifted his own chin into the air:

Earthworm cleared his throat and took a firm grip onto his hoe:

Each of them let out a deep sigh.

19

“Alright listen, if we're going to sing, I want something uplifting. Enough of these sad songs!” Little Buddha, flushed with anger, grabbed his hoe and flung it to the side. Like a whirlwind, a memory had swept through his mind—the memory of borrowing grain from Tokho on outrageous terms.

Tokho's barnyard that spring day had been crowded with tenant farmers who had come for loans of millet.

After they'd all waited for some time, Tokho finally came out with a long pipe between his lips.

“Why so many of you?”

This is what Tokho always said when he handed out his loan shark grain.

Tokho scanned the crowd standing in a circle around him. Each of the farmers who happened to catch Tokho's eye felt his heart stop and quickly bowed his head, afraid of being the unlucky one sent home empty-handed.

The lines set in Tokho's face tightened. In the crowd were people who hadn't even paid back their grain from the previous year.

“Humph! So what happened to everything you grew last year, huh? And you! Don't tell me you don't have anything left either?”

Tokho stared at Sourstem. The young man scratched his head. “Well, yes . . .”

“I wonder why . . . Looks to me like none of you boys know how to economize when it comes to food. If you keep on borrowing in the spring, things will be tough for you all come fall. Am I wrong?”

The farmers listened with their heads hung low.

Tokho was ready, pen in hand, to write down the names of each farmer into his notebook and note exactly how many bushels and scoops of grain they took away.

They all turned their heads toward the creaking sound of the granary door, which Yu Sobang was opening. Several of the men ran over to help him drag out sacks of millet. With a long swishing sound, they poured the millet onto straw mats spread out on the ground. Oh, that familiar sound of flowing grain! And all that chaff that flew up into white clouds of dust!

Driven by an unconscious urge, they huddled around the millet, then scooped up handfuls of the hulled grain to examine it closely, and placed a few grains in their mouths to taste.

The millet they had harvested and paid to Tokho the previous fall had a mellow flavor, like well-ripened chestnuts or dates, and they could actually roll the individual grains around on their tongues. But this millet, wherever it came from, had a coarse texture, as though it had been half mixed with chaff—it felt like they were chewing on the empty husks of grain.

The farmers had been thrilled to know they'd be able to receive grain, even on such outrageous terms. But now they were being cheated, and they knew there was no place they could make an appeal. The injustice of it all came to them in an overwhelming rush of feeling.

Yu Sobang looked at the farmers, who were exchanging desperate glances. “Well, come on, grab your bowls and make a single line.”

Only then did the farmers pull themselves together and line up single file to collect their grain.

That sound of millet flowing from the scoop into their sacks! Had it been a stone crashing onto their chests, could it have been any less painful?

 

His mind having wandered this far, Little Buddha now let out a deep sigh and wiped the sweat from his brow. He looked absentmindedly at the millet stems, which he had cared for with as much love as he would his own children. He felt the urge now to simply walk away—wherever his legs would take him—and to leave his hoe right there where he had tossed it.

“Come on. Let's have another song!” Yu Sobang tried to break the silence. But Little Buddha remembered that it had been Yu Sobang himself who had doled out that millet half mixed with chaff.

“Hey . . .” Little Buddha started to shout at Yu Sobang, but couldn't think of anything to say. He stood there staring blankly at the man.

They weeded the row assigned to them, then turned back to start another. This one was overrun by more arid thistle than the other. The ground between the thistle was dotted white with shepherd's purse flowers. Sourstem jumped to his feet and looked up at the sun to estimate their progress.

“I wonder if we can get all this weeded before sunset,” he mumbled.

“Are you crazy? There's no way we can finish by sunset.” Little Buddha looked up as he spoke to Sourstem.

“Come on, let's hear another song.”

Ch'otchae looked over at them. Squatting on the ground, Sourstem began singing a field song:

“Now that's more like it!” Earthworm cried.

“Hey, guys,” Little Buddha jumped to his feet. “Who's that?”

20

They all looked up at the same time. Coming right toward them was a man in a suit and a girl wearing high-heeled shoes. Burning with curiosity, they sprang to their feet.

“Come on, boys, that's Okchom, Master's daughter,”said Yu Sobang.

“No way! That's Okchom? I heard she went to study in Seoul. What's she doing back here?”

“She said she wasn't feeling so good.”

“So who's that in the suit?”

“Beats me!” Yu Sobang replied after a while.

“Looks like she went off to Seoul and caught a man for herself.”

With this, Little Buddha plopped himself down on the embankment at the side of the road.

“Shit! Some men have all the luck. Pretty girls, money, you name it. The rest of us are stuck lonely and broke until the day we die.”

Little Buddha took some dried motherwort out of his pocket. He placed it into a piece of newsprint, rolled it up, and after sealing it with spit began to smoke it. He watched as Okchom and the man in the suit gradually approached them.

The two of them glanced at the farmers as they passed by. Okchom's face was now turned toward the man. Whatever it was they were talking about, they both seemed to be enjoying themselves.

“Boy, she's something else, isn't she?” said Little Buddha, tossing away his cigarette butt once the two had walked off into the distance. He grabbed his hoe and started weeding again.

Shortly afterwards Earthworm gave Little Buddha a playful whack.

“Sounds like you're hankering to find a bride.”

“You bet I am. Got anyone in mind for me?”

Earthworm, remembering something, called, “Hey, Yu Sobang. Sonbi's living over at Tokho's, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“They thinking about getting her married?”

“Well, I guess they are!”

Sourstem winked at Little Buddha. “Yu Sobang has no idea. How's he supposed to know anything?” he said, while Yu Sobang pretended not to listen.

Ch'otchae, for his part, flashed his eyes wide open when he heard what they were talking about, but heaved a deep sigh. Little Buddha, more interested than ever, looked back at Earthworm.

“Hey, set something up for me, how about it?”

“Don't look at me. You're going to have to ask Tokho about that.”

“That's what I mean, stupid. I want you to talk to Tokho on my behalf.”

“And you think he'll listen to me?”

“Sonbi's pretty, you know, but she's got a good heart too . . . I'm telling you, she's the best.”

Yu Sobang pictured Sonbi in his mind as he thought about what Sourstem had just said. Ch'otchae too, if it hadn't been for the others, would have drilled Yu Sobang with questions about Sonbi.